


stockings on the fireplace, or something

by icarxs



Series: Future QAFUK [1]
Category: Queer as Folk (UK)
Genre: Christmas Reunions, Gen, M/M, the least realistic thing about this is that Stuart is happy and healthy, the only relevant trope in the world is found family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 13:57:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15842712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarxs/pseuds/icarxs
Summary: Christmas 2015, Stuart and Vince fly back from Los Angeles and Nathan drags his new boyfriend to meet his mental friends.





	stockings on the fireplace, or something

**2015**

“Stalker, ten o’clock,” said Alexander, primly. “Just like old times, innit.” Then, he said, head tilted to one side like a particularly tall, gay cockatoo, “or not really.”

“Where?” demanded Hazel, craning her neck. “Where the fuck?”

“There.”

Alexander pointed. They could just make out Nathan, carving a path through the crowd; he spotted them and his face broke into a grin, creases at the eyes, bright as sunshine, the whole fucking shebang. Stuart let out a long, low whistle. “Jaysus Christ,” he said, leaning back in his chair, as much a prowl as one could do while sitting, “can you believe I used up my fucking shag pass with him when he looked like a twink, and now he goes and looks like _that_.”

Even Vince couldn’t muster up the energy to tell him off; they were all staring, quite unashamedly, pint glasses in hand, a study in lust – even Hazel, a married woman, and therefore entirely reformed, or so she claimed. Stuart Jones had never been reformed in his life, but his hand lay heavy and possessive on Vince’s thigh, and besides, Vince didn’t think he’d be able to hold it against him if Stuart slipped, just this once.

"Have you ever," said Alexander reverently, "seen a man you wanted to blow _this much._ " 

Vince kinda got it. That was because Nathan - who had, to be fair, always been beautiful, angel-faced and delicate - was fucking _gorgeous_ now. He was probably twice Vince’s breadth. He had a beard, and hair swept back from his face, and under his red t-shirt was a body that no man should be able to lay claim to. “Sweet Lord Mary Joseph and baby Jesus,” Alexander declaimed, crossing himself, “the Archangel has come to bless us all,” and the entire table dissolved into laughter just as Nathan reached them. He stalled, surprised, and crossed his arms across his chest in a defensive measure that made him sixteen again, and Vince dizzy with the slippage of time. At the sight of his biceps Alexander made an audible, high-pitched noise in the back of his throat that made Stuart bury his nose in his pint and come up sopping wet and choking.

Nathan eyed him with mingled amusement and affection. “Good to see you’re all still mad, then,” he said. There was, everyone realised now they weren’t blinded, a man at his shoulder; a very handsome man. Nathan put a hand in the small of his back and nudged him forward: Vince got an impression of tangled dark hair and protuberant eyes before Alexander let out a wail.

“ _No!_ ” he declared, loud enough that several nearby tables swivelled in their seats and Hazel groaned, “no, this is _illegal_! Nathan, you can’t _do_ this to us.”

Nathan blinked, genuinely confused. “Do what?” he said. “I was just gonna introduce –”

“Please.” Alexander held out a hand to stop him. He was doing Jackie O, his other hand pressed to his forehead, bottom lip trembling, the works; Stuart looked like he might be sick, he was trying so hard not to laugh. Vince, who’d never had a Stuart vaccination and thus caught all his moods, turned his back and pretended to be looking for the toilets, biting hard on his tongue. “Fuck marriage legislation, there should be a law against you snatching up all the beautiful men. Has he locked you down? Of course he has – lost my chance, haven’t I, even after all these years.”

Understanding had dawned. Nathan rolled his eyes down towards his boyfriend – for so the man presumably was – and said, “they’re all mental, I did warn you.” Then he said, “anyway, Xander, we fucked years ago, so don’t be a drama queen.”

“But it’s all I _know!_ Vodka cranberry?”

“This is Marcus. We’ve been together three years now.”

“Three _years?_ ”

This was Stuart. Nathan turned his bright blue eyes on him and raised his eyebrows in a quick flicker of a challenge. “Yeah, so?”

“Jaysus,” Stuart repeated, “and all the young things are so fucking _functional_ now. Getting boyfriends and shite like that earlier and earlier – you should be suicidally lonely for at least a _couple_ 'a years, builds character.”

Now Vince did laugh, and stood, edged his way past his mother’s chair, and pulled Nathan into a hug. He was a good hugger. Over his shoulder, Vince made a face of great pleasure and Stuart flipped him off. Nathan’s boyfriend saw: Nathan’s boyfriend laughed. “Great to see you mate,” Vince said, “you’re looking well. I get if you can’t tell us, but how long did the government experiment on you?”

“Get fucked,” Nathan said cheerfully, and planted a bristly kiss on his cheek. “Hazel, babe, how are you?”

“Old,” said Hazel, “old and in love with another gay man. _C’est la vie_. Come here, my darling.”

Then there was the bustle of getting more drinks, and all-round introductions – Nathan said, “and that’s Stuart Jones,” and Marcus said, “ _that’s_ Stuart Jones?” and Stuart said, “ _oi_ , fucker,” and Marcus said, “just thought you’d be taller,” and him and Nathan shared this smirk that was filthy enough that Alexander pretended to swoon, and they all had to spend five minutes ‘reviving’ him. As far as nights in Canal Street went, it was up there with the best.

Stuart volunteered to stand them the next round, so Vince haunted him up to the bar. There, Stuart pressed him against it and kissed him stupid. Coming round, Vince said, a hand hooked in Stuart’s belt, “what’s _that_ for.”

“I could hear you thinking,” Stuart said. “Fucking annoying, it was drowning out Xander’s hysterics.” He signalled to the bartender, ordered. The bartender swept his gaze over them; being with Stuart, even after all these years, was like being with a magnet surrounded by iron filings. So much for the bollocks of aging: Vince got wrinkles and a paunch, Stuart got silver-fox hair and a jawline. As Hazel had said: _c’est la vie_. As the bartender was pulling his pints and sneaking looks, Stuart slung an arm around Vince’s shoulders and leant heavily against him. “Fucking American, though. Can you believe.”

“I’ve never had an American,” said Vince thoughtfully.

“Yeah, you have,” Stuart corrected him. “That tall bloke. The black guy. Fuckin’ – whatever his name was.”

“Yeah, thanks, Jones, that’s really helpful.”

Stuart was clicking his fingers, mouthing names: “Arthur Angus William David – fuck, it was something stupid traditional.”

“Jack.”

“Jack!” Stuart pointed at him. His weight was still pressed, ever-comforting, down Vince’s side. “ _That_ was it.”

“He was one of yours, mate.”

“Oh.” Stuart deflated a little. Then he said, “must’ve been thinking of you the whole time, then,” and paid with a flash of his card.

Vince lingered, letting Stuart go a couple of steps in front of him; habit, from years of watching, now solidified by the fact that he _could_ watch. Heads turned. Heads were always turning, but this time Stuart waited for him and, with two trays piled high with drinks, they wound their way through, half in step, Stuart spouting bollocks all the while. Most of it was lost in the music and loud laughter of the surrounding tables. Straight people for miles, but it could be so hard to tell these days. Stuart could mock all he wanted, but things were better – not fixed, but better. It had been a long time since he’d felt unsafe grabbing Stuart’s hand on the street; but then again, maybe that was because they both carried more bulk, and because Stuart, as he aged, looked more and more like he should be directing prohibition murders in 1930s New York. As he placed Nathan’s pint next to him, Stuart presented his kiss for a cheek, which Nathan granted, snorting.

“You look good,” he said, “not dead yet.”

“It’s just to save you,” Stuart retorted. “I knew you’d throw yourself into my grave, Indian widow style. Didn’t want to deprive Babylon of your patronage.”

“Nathan,” Vince said helpfully to the beautiful American, “was madly in love with Stuart.”

The American laughed. He was weird. Vince liked that for Nathan – Nathan never could do normal. Nathan himself didn’t look in the least bit repentant. “We all do dumb shit at fifteen,” he said. “At least I didn’t continue my dumb shit for three decades. Speaking of which.” He nodded at Vince’s hand. “No ring? No commitment from the ultimate fifties housewife?”

Vince said, smugly, “marriage is an institution created by the fascist heterosexual orthodoxy,” and then he said, “plus, we had a civil partnership five years ago. Invited you, but you were in Chicago, fucker.”

“Oh, _yeah_ ,” said Nathan. “Shit, I forgot.”

“Fucking useless!” yelled Stuart, from the other end of the table. “How many ex-shags of yours get married and _invite_ you?”

“You’d be surprised,” Nathan smirked, and Stuart threw a crisp at him.

Vince hadn’t been back to Manchester since Stuart’s nephew had got married, and that had been five years ago at least, but he still knew the way to the toilets and back, and he could trace the map of the streets on the inside of Stuart’s palm well enough, so that was good enough for him. As they all got drunker, the American got more weird, Stuart got quieter, softer, lazier with happiness, and Nathan’s accent, warped by a decade in New York, finally kicked in full-swing, which made Alexander beam. By the time last call was ringing out, they were the only large table left, Stuart was four pints in, flushed and pliable against Vince’s side, and Nathan had his mouth at the American’s ear. He was probably saying something entirely inappropriate. Vince counted back: thirty, Nathan was. What a year. He looked content, for thirty.

Stuart was leaning against Vince’s arm fully now, legs stretched out across three chairs like he was reclining on the damn couch. He was on his phone, fingers flying across keys, and Vince snooped over his shoulder: Marie, wanting updates. He said, not looking up, “remember this time. Fifteen years ago.”

It was December now; the red and green lights twinkled in all the windows. Vince wracked his brains, smudged as they were by beer and companionship. “Mm, no? Since when did you become the one who remembered shit.”

“Since always, you daft bastard.” Stuart put his phone away in his pocket, struggling a little to get it into his tight jeans. Vince did not move to help, but he did loop an arm around Stuart’s chest and settle back against the wall of the booth. Stuart was half on his lap now, which was how Vince liked it. “We were in DC. First Christmas away from here.”

“Ah, fuck, yeah,” said Vince, not remembering. Those early Christmases, alone, had been mostly a blur of booze and sex. They’d made their own Christmas traditions: drink until noon, fuck until three. Stuart elbowed him hard in the gut, then settled back into him quite contentedly, a sharp-clawed cat.

“We got snowed into that shite little hotel and couldn’t get back to the brownstone.”

“Oh, _Christ_ , with that bitch of a landlady.”

“That’s the one.”

“Mm. Terrible Christmas. I wanted to leave you.”

Stuart laughed, then, really laughed, the kind of laugh he’d tried to train himself out of, seventeen, sixteen years ago because he thought it was unattractive. It made Nathan’s head snap up, Pavlovian; Vince watched his face crease into a self-deprecating smile as he returned to turning the American to mush. “Fuck off, mate,” Stuart said, “as if you ever fucking did.”

“I did! The snow saved you.”

“You twat.”

Hazel was packing up; she bent to kiss Vince on the forehead, and then Stuart arched up and demanded a proper kiss, which she granted like a benediction, hard on the mouth. Vince rolled his eyes and said, “sometimes I think everyone I know is fucked up.”

“Fucked is right,” said Stuart, in an undertone, jerking his head very unsubtly in the direction of Nathan and the American – whose name, Vince reminded himself, was Marcus. It still took him a while to remember that this was not some one-night-stand. Marcus would probably be popping up for a while now, at least, at weddings, Christenings, other shite reasons for parties that people came up with, especially if he and Stuart moved to London like Hazel had been nagging him to do for months. Marcus-the-American was well on his way into Nathan’s lap, too, but there was a _very_ different energy hanging around them. Stuart sighed, just a bit, Vince felt it.

“Remember being like that?”

Vince snorted. “Fuck off, we’re not dead yet. You’re _still_ like that. You tried to wank me off at work’s Christmas party just last _week_ , right in the downstairs loos.”

“Alright, ta-ra now,” cried Hazel cheerfully, “that’s my cue!”

They waved her off. Nathan peeled himself away from his conquest to kiss her goodnight, and flushed at whatever it was she whispered to him, and when he looked across the table, Stuart was making a very lewd gesture with his iphone. Nathan said, “oh, fuck _off_ ,” beaming, and took Marcus’s hand. “We’re going.”

“Use protection, kids,” Stuart drawled. “We don’t want any mini-Americans pitter-pattering on their tiny gay feet, now, do we.”

“You utter tosser.” There was nothing Nathan liked more than Stuart being a bit nasty to him. “Jealous twat.” Then he held out Marcus’s coat for him to put on, which made both Vince and Stuart explode into another round of teasing that left Nathan beet-red and Marcus, who seemed to like them very much, doubled over in laughter. When they’d finally been allowed to leave, Stuart stretched out luxuriously.

“So,” he said, “Babylon?”

“Fuck right off,” Vince said, pinching him hard in the soft swell of his side. “Actually fuck off. Do you never shut up?”

“No. You should take me back to yours.”

“I bloody will,” Vince muttered, “and I’ll – oh, shite, have they left us with the bill?”

Stuart sat bolt upright. “ _Wankers!_ ”

**Author's Note:**

> Nathan's boyfriend is basically Rami Malek tbh


End file.
